Twitter, for those who don’t know, is an online social network where people can post 140 character messages known as “tweets”. Tweets can be a cool link you found, a question to your followers, or just an idle comment about what you’re doing. Although small at 5 million users (Facebook has 60m), its annual growth stands at over 1000% (200% for Facebook). It’s pretty hot stuff.
Now, I don’t know whether any of the Twitter users who read Lib Dem Voice have checked recently, but a tweet search for “libdem” makes pretty depressing reading (Non-Twitter users can check it out here ). Sure there’s some great Lib Dem Twitterers out there, like @libdemvoice, and @joswinson, and of course @nickclegg, but much of the traffic is quite negative.
Some select choices from the current timeline include @Labourcat’s gleeful, “Ha Ha Tad unfortunate Libdem candidate has a moat. Oophs.”; @fipz’ puzzled “#crapgraffiti at Bromley south. Vote lib dem. WTF”, and the postively charming comment from Andrew_GwynneMP that “@liambillington look I know what you mean! I have to deal with LibDem Stockport. Loathing of Libs something Labour n Tory can agree on!! 
”. (Which I think says more about Mr Gwynne’s sense of humour than it does about us).
I won’t comment on the stark contrast between Labour and Conservative insistence that the Liberal Democrats are an irrelevant party and the vigour with which they attack us, because that’s not my point here. The point is that the Internet is a medium in which a few committed people can punch far above their weight and have a much wider influence than they could otherwise.
Though I think few people would change their political views based on one or two tweets, and online campaigning is no substitute for shoe leather, nonetheless an Internet atmosphere positive to the Liberal Democrats would help immensely to keep people open-minded and interested for when we do come knocking on their doors.
While we may not have the membership of the other two main parties, we still have many dedicated activists. Twitter, like all social media, is going to fade one day, but it’s going to grow rapidly for at least two or three years. We need to get in there now and spread the Liberal Democrat vision of a fair, free and open society.
* Sarah McCulloch is a member of the Liberal Democrats based in Manchester and regularly tweets at @grassonmydesk.
11 Comments
I started Tweeting this week at colinross1975
This rather presumes that you can spread the Liberal Democrat vision of a fair, free and open society in 140 characters or less.
Frankly, the current worship of Twitter seems banal and ridiculous – see the prize morons quoted in the post! Also note the ‘tweeterview’ with Nick Clegg in the Independent. He’s simply unable to say anything worthwhile about policy in 140 characters, and I’d be worried if he was. I’m not a Luddite by any means, and I’m quite open to the use of other social networking tools – but just not Twitter!
Childish ad-hom attacks on the Lib Dems seem to be the stock-in-trade for our opponents. For all the time we spend on policy, our opponents seem oddly reticent to engage us.
Comments like “What’s the point of Nick Clegg?” (ho ho ho) massively outnumber any attempt to attack the Lib Dems on, say, Trident, electoral and constitutional reform, our plans for the economy, local income tax or public transport.
(Not that we’re completely innocent on the childish attack front – it has it’s place, but not to the exclusion of all else).
Foregone Conclusion:
Actually, I thought Nick came over well in the interview. Of course he can’t say everything we might like to be said in 140 characters, but to those who think politicians talk too much, I suspect the forced brevity is more likely to come across as refreshing. What you got from that interview was direct answers. If people want to know more, Twitter isn’t the venue for it, but getting them interested in the first place is still a valuable thing to do.
I tweet all the time @MarkReckons. I generally tweet about politics from a liberal perspective so please feel free to follow me if that’s your bag.
There are some childish attacks on us but there is also lots of good stuff on Twitter. I follow lots of people from different parties and have found some interesting debates and blogs via this route.
But I agree, the more Lib Dems on there the better so get tweeting!
“This rather presumes that you can spread the Liberal Democrat vision of a fair, free and open society in 140 characters or less.”
Well, of course you can. “The Liberal Democrats respect the rights of all people up until the point they infringe upon the rights of others, which requires a balance.” There.
I am a recent convert to Twitter. Although it’s not a substitute for traditional campaigning (I find face to face contact is appreciated more and more in this online age) it is a useful addition.
It’s particularly good for brief updates on activity by campaigners as you can text in from events, etc and it can be used to post quick links to longer postings elsewhere.
Don’t rely on it but do try it…
OR – we could all do something useful like deliver some bloody leaflets!!!!!
I think people make too much of a fuss about Twitter, and indeed the Internet in general. There’s this rash assumption that just because everybody *can* read your outpourings online, everybody *will*.
Tweeting doesn’t get you an audience of five million. It gets you a much smaller audience, largely of people you already know, most of whom don’t really care about what you have to say about politics. Ditto Facebook or anything else.
Tweet if you want to. I’ll be out delivering.
Dave: it’s a good point that some people do seem to assume that because there are lots of people on the internet, somehow their words will automatically get read by a big audience.
But you’re wrong in assuming that for everyone therefore there is “a much smaller audience, largely of people you already know, most of whom don’t really care about what you have to say about politics”. If you look at people who have taken the time and effort to build up their local audience, they do get to large numbers of constituents who (a) are interested in voting and (b) aren’t just activists of one party or another. Steve Webb and Lynne Featherstone are good examples from the Lib Dems, and there are plenty from other parties too.
I bet if Steve or Lynne sat at their computer for even half the amount of time it takes you to do your next delivery round, their words would get to be read by more constituents online than the number who would read the leaflets you deliver.
Twitter is tedious.